21 November 2018Ramsgate Town Council was created in 2009 and its’ Councillors were hoping to obtain ownership of all of the statutory allotments in their area. The Parishes and Parish Councils Regulations 2008 say that all allotments land held by a District Council on the day when a new Parish comes into being MUST be transferred to the new Parish Council.
Sadly for Ramsgate, Thanet DC fought them in the High Court and won. Thanet convinced the Court that the particular piece of allotments land that Ramsgate really wanted was not (at the time of the creation of Ramsgate Council in 2009) actually used as statutory allotments.
National Legal Advisor, Nicholas Hancox, comments, “The law on transferring allotments land was and is very clear, but this particular piece of land fell outside the usual rule.”
Case Reference: Ramsgate TC v Thanet DC [2018] EWHC 3042 (16 October 2018).
Richard Styles, Town Clerk to Ramsgate has kindly agreed to write an article for The Clerk magazine with more details of this interesting case.
